Who owns Britney Spears?
Things have been tense in the #FreeBritney movement lately. That might be a surprising thing for an outsider to hear; earlier this month, I started a different blog post with the claim that #FreeBritney has essentially won. The movement’s goal to expose and terminate the abusive conservatorship of Britney Spears is near-accomplished–Britney’s estranged father has been permanently suspended as conservator of her estate and the hearing to fully terminate is set for the coming month. Even Britney, formerly banned from discussing her legal battles publicly, has begun openly celebrating her imminent victory, writing on social media that her life is “now in [the] direction” of freedom and thanking fans within the #FreeBritney movement for their resilience and passion. With the movement’s success and Britney’s voiced approval, what could #FreeBritney supporters have to battle over? A lot.
From the outset, #FreeBritney ignited a quiet civil war within the Britney Spears standom. Grounds for the movement were first established around 2008 alongside the conservatorship itself. Movement leader and prominent Britney stan, Jordan Miller, became the first in the fandom to noticeably speak out against Britney’s restraints. #FreeBritney didn’t develop further for about a decade (Miller was threatened viciously by Jamie Spears to cease reporting on the conservatorship), but suspicions of Jamie Spears and Britney’s team became a mainstay of the standom. Access to Britney’s unfiltered voice was impossible to obtain–even when she did public appearances, interviewers criticized scripted questions and restraints that left exchanges with Britney toothless and inauthentic–so no one outside of Britney’s inner circle could know how she felt about basically anything. Speculative theories were a requirement for Britney fans, narratives ranging from she’s totally fine and happy to she’s being drugged and enslaved by her team.
The latter theory gained more traction toward the end of 2018 when Britney appeared on TheEllenShow’s YouTube channel to announce a new residency in Las Vegas called Domination. Two podcasts had gained positive reputations in the Britney standom by this time. Co-hosts Bradley Stern and T. Kyle MacMahon of “It’s Britney, Bitch!,” a podcast meant to retrospectively celebrate the first 20 years of Britney’s solo career, reported on the event with mild concern, noting Britney’s apparent anxiety, how she was pushed away from fans, and the “elephant in the room” questioning her control of the situation. The co-hosts lamented what Britney’s managers were expecting her to do and criticized the optics of sending her on stage ill-prepared, yet they didn’t place explicit blame onto the conservatorship or condemn Britney’s legal situation outright.
Co-hosts Barbara (Babs) Gray and Tess Barker of Britney’s Gram, a podcast meant to analyze the hidden meanings of Britney’s Instagram uploads, took a more pointed angle in their reporting:
Tess: “Simultaneously while this was going on… I did find Britney’s court file for her conservatorship. On [the day before the livestream], Jamie gave some kind of a statement to the court in regards to the conservatorship and a date was set… Something is happening with the conservatorship that they have until next August to change…”
B: “Something happened the day before that could definitely if not directly affecting this could for sure be affecting her wellbeing.”
T: “That’s what I’m thinking… We don’t know yet how closely correlated it is to the residency or anything like that but clearly, I think there’s reason to believe that might be why she was a little shaken up.”
Very little was heard from Britney or her team following the announcement, and by January, Domination was officially cancelled with Britney’s social media citing her father’s recent colon rupture as reason for an “indefinite hiatus” in her career. For months, Britney was nowhere to be found, not on social media nor in candid paparazzi photos. Britney’s Gram, uploading weekly at that point, was continuing their investigation into her conservatorship–analyzing everything in the weeks that Britney was absent from the public, from the presence of Larry Rudolf in interviews to unearthed court documents that helped complete the picture of the conservatorship’s control. In April 2019, the podcast uploaded an episode titled “#FreeBritney,” which publicized claims from an alleged former paralegal saying Britney had been placed into a mental health facility against her will.
#FreeBritney exploded after this with the Britney’s Gram girls emerging as leaders for the movement. Not wanting to spread conspiracy theories or encourage breaches into Britney’s privacy, the guys from It’s Britney Bitch condemned most speculation around the issue, taking some jabs at Britney’s Gram’s credibility and appealing to naive claims of legality under California conservatorship law (they were doubtful, for instance, of the claim that Britney was forced into medical treatment since a conservator does not legally hold that power, apparently unaware that 1] a conservator exerts so much control over other aspects of a conservatee’s life that anything could be used as a bargaining chip to force specific outcomes such as involuntary medical treatment, and 2] sometimes people do things that are illegal).
Brad and T. Kyle were the first major casualties of the #FreeBritney war. Fans condemned their inaction while evidence of Britney’s abuse began piling up, some even claiming the hosts were directly paid by Britney’s team to quash anti-conservatorship theories. On their new podcast, Legend’s Only, the two have spoken about the traumatic experience of being “cancelled” by the Britney standom. Though their stances on #FreeBritney have adapted following Britney’s testimony and the onslaught of new information made public, many #FreeBritney supporters have never looked past their original backlash to the movement. These sorts of lines have been drawn all over #FreeBritney.
Tess Barker (left) and Babs Gray (right)
Britney’s Gram, for a while the movement’s most prominent leaders, went on in January of this year to call out a leading #FreeBritney Twitter account, accusing @lawyersforbritney of hacking into #FreeBritney profiles, obstructing a virtual court hearing, and “maintaining multiple fake IG accounts to stoke distrust in the movement.” Basically, they accused “Lawyers for Britney” of secretly being “Team Con,” a phrase #FreeBritney supporters use for anyone who spreads pro-conservatorship talking points or is suspected to be a mole working for Britney’s team. “Lawyers for Britney” then claimed to have information indicating Britney’s Gram lied about the credibility of the paralegal from their #FreeBritney episode, and there was apparently a dispute over both parties wanting to exclusively hold obtained contracts for their own reporting.
In the last month, this in-fighting has become even more prevalent. Twitter accounts @freebritneyla , @thatsurpisewitness, and @bkstyl3 were accused of trying to profit off the movement following attempts to trademark Twitter handles and #FreeBritney slogans. BKSTYL3 then made a thread to expose “infiltrators” of #FreeBritney, accusing the former Britney’s Gram co-hosts–now hosting a new podcast titled “Toxic: The Britney Spears Story”–of being performative activists whose agent has ties to the conservatorship. Or something. It’s hard to keep up, but all this comes shortly after Babs and Tess wound up in their first major #FreeBritney scandal, having announced a virtual meet-and-greet mid-October alongside a paid #FreeBritney livestream event.
Babs tweeted in defense of their event:
There’s a notion floating through #FreeBritney communities that Babs, Tess, and anyone else popularly associated with #FreeBritney should be considered “activists” whilst publicizing Britney’s case. According to some, activists don’t get paid.
I disagree with that opinion for the most part; we live in a capitalistic society where basic life necessities are exchanged for money, goods, and services. People deserve to be compensated for their time and labor, no matter how altruistic the end goal of their services may be. The Britney’s Gram hosts would be reasonable to ask for donations, take appropriate sponsorships, or set up a system in which their content can be accessed for a small fee (I am not against paywalls by any means if it helps journalists, in particular, be compensated for their investigative efforts).
What I do find suspect, however, is how #FreeBritney “activists” have taken the dire circumstances of Britney Spears’ life and transformed them into content for entertainment and merchandise. I don’t have enough information about the livestream to know if it’s in poor taste, but I’ve certainly questioned the appropriateness of the Britney’s Gram podcasters’ media presence in the past. Their decision to make merch for their Toxic: The Britney Spears Story podcast, for instance, came across as abhorrently tone-deaf.
While they claim profits made from the merch will be matched in donations to the ACLU’s disability rights program, one has to wonder what merch for a podcast about a living women’s trauma implies. Not only have they taken aspects of Britney’s iconography (the name “Toxic” being a reference to the Britney song and the snake depicted in the graphics being a reference to the “Slave 4 U” VMA performance), they’ve transformed her personal story into a brand not owned or officially approved by Britney.
My main question is: who actually wants this merch and why? A lot of #FreeBritney apparel is available online right now; money is being exchanged in this movement and ostensibly none of it is making its way back to the women at its center. There’s an argument to be made that some of this is necessary: #FreeBritney t-shirts, masks, and whatever else bring awareness to the situation, hopefully prompting a larger-scale investigation into conservatorship abuse. The podcasts and documentaries which have sprouted up in the last year arguably do the same; even if they make entertainment out of Britney’s situation, they certainly have changed a great many minds about the severity of her mistreatment, making her journey to freedom a lot more optimistic. Creating merch for a podcast that tackles the issue of Britney’s conservatorship, however, emphasizes that the podcast is a product in isolation from #FreeBritney, the altruistic nature of this “activism” being lost once the product begins commemorating itself. That’s why the #FreeBritney “event” and meet-and-greet comes across as kind of tacky and inappropriate. The Britney’s Gram girls deserve to be compensated for their efforts, sure, but should they be propping themselves up as practical celebrities in the movement in the process?
Though I clearly agree that some criticism of Britney’s Gram is valid, all the #FreeBritney in-fighting seems to boil down to attempts of #FreeBritney supporters to be recognized as the *real activists* of the movement. Paranoia regarding who is or isn’t “Team Con” isn’t unfounded–during the second New York Times documentary, Controlling Britney Spears, a former employee of Britney’s security team disclosed that spies were planted within #FreeBritney spaces, allegedly attending rallies to comb for private information on activists. The search for Team Con has developed, however, into a witch hunt where anyone who says anything not fully aligned with another supporter’s perception of reality can be deemed a traitor to the movement.
Many people close to Britney have either actively participated or were complicit in the conservatorship’s abuse and preservation. Those who may have pushed back against her conservators’ control were allegedly restricted from accessing Britney, with claims of changed phone numbers and lies being created to form rifts between her and her loved ones. Some fans have taken this to mean that *we* (Britney’s fans and other #FreeBritney supporters) are the only people in her corner. Media outlets have encouraged this thinking, proclaiming that Britney Spears fans “had it right all along” while filmmakers from the first New York Times documentary used visual cues to imply the closeness of Britney and her supporters, as confirmed in a later interview:
Samantha Stark, director: “I had been looking at Britney’s Instagram a lot, and I noticed Britney loves roses. There are so many posts with pictures of roses and also so many posts of her holding flowers. There’s also this greenery, backyard feel to a lot of her posts. I really wanted the documentary to live in the world of that. I had this rose wall built for the fans, because I was trying to make the amount of roses reflect their relationship to Britney”…
Liz Day, senior editor: “That's why we used roses throughout the film, as the motif and in connection to Britney.”
It’s implied, then, that those on film with the most roses in shot have the closest “connection” to Britney. An attorney for Jamie Spears gets barely any roses, Britney’s former assistant and friend, Felicia Culotta, gets a fair amount, and #FreeBritney activists get the absolute most, their backgrounds covered in pink and red so much so that the plain green hedges are barely visible beneath.
Britney fans have been empowered in this way. Some have taken such ownership of Britney’s recent legal success that made-up quotes have circulated #FreeBritney communities praising the movement itself, for instance, this quote supposedly from Britney during a hearing in July of 2021:
“The people who fucking work for me even tried to sue my fans. My fans, ma'am, not theirs. It's because of them I am here today. It’s because of them I have the fucking strength to speak up against my family who have silenced me for years.”
Britney never said this but plenty of #FreeBritney supporters were eager to believe she did. Popular stan Twitter account, “Britney Hiatus” (the account has been suspended many times and I’m unsure of the handle they’re currently using), a prominent leader for the movement, quickly Tweeted another adjacent (and fake) quote upon initial circulation, using it in a pointed dig against the men of It’s Britney Bitch/Legend’s Only.
The incident was shameful. Leaders in the movement are so excited to pat themselves on the back for their support of Britney that they would rather run with fake quotes and engage in petty stan wars than take the time and verify what Britney Spears is actually saying.
It’s imperative to acknowledge the hard work of the movement and that fans’ suspicions of the conservatorship were, in fact, “right all along.” That doesn’t mean that a majority of fans have been right about everything or that they have special insight into Britney’s feelings just by being acquainted with her work. I worry, at times, that the success of #FreeBritney has enabled a parasocial bond that will eventually complicate Britney’s journey toward being a free woman.
Episodes of Britney’s Gram sometimes exemplify the speculative nature of much #FreeBritney activism. On the episode directly following the aptly-titled #FreeBritney in April of 2019, the co-hosts continue to analyze Britney’s Instagram posts. They make fair points about an April 23rd video containing a caption that was likely not from Britney (I still consider this to be the most suspicious post on Britney’s entire account), but they go on to raise doubt over a separate caption in which Britney appears to celebrate a five-pound weight loss. Tess claims,
“If you know Britney at all, if you’re a fan even casually, you’d know that she would never write that… She just wouldn’t. She doesn’t talk about her weight…That’s just not how I’ve ever seen her discuss body image... I’ve never seen her be the type of person who would even imply that losing five pounds is a good thing.”
The hosts say that the sentiment expressed in Britney’s caption is that of someone with an “antiquated” view of body image. Surely Queen Britney does not have such outdated beliefs, except for the fact that she has gone on to mention weight loss in several Instagram captions and videos since (even if you still believe she’s not writing all or any of her captions, we can’t deny that she is making those videos). Tess and Babs admitted in a later episode that their gauge on Britney’s body image was a bit off, but this is a theme that permeates #FreeBritney, mostly related to her Instagram posts. If something is uploaded to Britney’s social media that doesn’t exactly match the image fans have created of her in their minds, it must have been Team Con. This phenomenon extends to decisions she makes offline as well, especially in her hotly-debated partnership with her fiance, Sam Asghari.
Britney Spears and boyfriend Sam Asghari
This is frustratingly another line-drawing issue for those in the #FreeBritney camp, some praising Sam Asghari as being one of the few in Britney’s life to support her quest for freedom, others thinking he’s just another spy for the conservatorship (he’s almost certainly not). There are some fans that don’t seem to believe Sam needs to technically be Team Con, though, to be worthy of condemnation from #FreeBritney. He’s an opportunist, they say, using his relationship with Britney to further his own career in entertainment. Sam also might have cheated on Britney, though we have no proof, and he once said something fucked up about homeless people on Facebook in 2015.
Here’s the thing about Sam Asghari: you don’t have to like him. You can hate him, think he’s annoying, suspect that he’s a gold-digger, whatever. You’re entitled to your feelings and some amount of concern for Britney’s wellbeing, but in the fight for her freedom, what you don’t get to do is tell Britney who she should or shouldn’t allow in her life.
Britney is engaged to Sam; if you truly believe she should have to right to make her own decisions, marrying Sam is one of those decisions.
Often I wonder if some fans actually want Britney free or if they just want to be Britney’s conservators themselves. Their projections are all over the place: Britney shouldn’t be with Sam because he said this thing I didn’t like in 2015. Britney couldn’t have made this Instagram caption because the Britney I’ve imagined wouldn’t write that. Britney would thank these fans for their support, but not these ones because they didn’t interact with the movement in ways I thought were appropriate two years ago.
Even when some fans praise Britney, they do so with an implied condemnation of actions they find counterintuitive to their image of her. When Britney posts a selfie that looks “good” to her fans’ standards, they might tweet something about the improvement between it and older photos, seemingly under the impression that the better-looking Britney (by their standards) is her truest self removed from her conservators’ control.
Or fans push theories about what their idealized version of Britney will do once she’s freed.
Conflating your image of what you’d like Britney Spears the popstar to do or be with who Britney Spears the human being actually is the exact opposite of what #FreeBritney should be about. When Britney’s conservatorship is terminated, she might marry the wrong man, upload strange things onto Instagram, retire, say something dumb, neglect to brush her hair (hair-brushing and heavy eyeshadow have become points of contention in the standom), or literally anything else an adult woman is free to do.
There’s nothing to be gained from proclaiming that you’ve supported Britney better or with more accuracy than other fans. None of us should be clamoring for the position of guiding the #FreeBritney narrative, we should be clamoring to hand the reigns back to Britney herself.